


Ant

by yeaka



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Ficlet, Gen, Kid Fic, M/M, Pointless
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-15
Updated: 2013-10-15
Packaged: 2017-12-29 11:48:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1005069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yeaka/pseuds/yeaka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spock’s left outside in the rain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ant

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: They’re both kids here. Why is Winona Kirk always an admiral in my head? I don’t know. Just a pointless, short moment.
> 
> Disclaimer: I don’t own Star Trek or any of its contents, and I’m not making any money off this.

Rain is still something of a foreign concept, regular as it is on Earth. When it first starts up, when that first drop hits him, Spock’s startled, and he looks up at the sky. The next one hits him squarely on the nose; he goes cross-eyed trying to look at it. 

And then it’s all around him, spattering the grey sidewalk and the black road past it, running down the clear windows of the building behind him. There’s a small awning around the side of the convention center that he walks over to, glancing at the Starfleet guard on the way. The guard makes an apologetic face at him. Spock doesn’t have a hat like the officer does, but during important conference hours, the center is strictly off-limits to non-Starfleet personnel. 

Spock has no idea when his father will be done with the meeting. It hadn’t seemed prudent to ask—it’ll be over when it’s over; knowing the specifics of when won’t make any difference to that fact. He waits with his back tight to the beige wall, just narrowly missing the downpour. What was a small sprinkle works into a rush in no time, so many millions of drops together that they blur into one white wave, obscuring the other side of the street. The general din builds into a loud pitter-patter, almost painful to Spock’s sensitive ears. Cars are still moving, and a woman passes under a pink umbrella. How do the humans live in this? Earth is an odd place. 

He knows it’s half of him, but it’s still _odd_. (And intimidating.) A large part of him wants to go back to Vulcan, where’s he’s told he’d be better off here, but at least it’s a place he understands. And it’s dry. This is strange and something scary, especially all alone, and the rain brings a chill that makes Spock cross his arms. The blue knit sweater his mother packed for him somehow isn’t warm enough, and it certainly isn’t waterproof. 

He shivers despite hugging his body. He briefly wishes he were fatter. He scolds himself for that thought. It probably wouldn’t make him less cold. But being wiry makes it feel like he’ll drift away in the next wind, which seems to pick up and carry the water to and fro. Puddles are forming about him, reflective but jittery. 

They sky on Vulcan was never grey like this. The convention center feels huge and he feels tiny, like a little bug on a leaf all by itself, being prodded into a lake. 

When his father first left him here, he said he’d be okay. He thought he would be.

“Hey.” Spock’s head snaps to the side. He didn’t hear the footsteps over all the water. 

He mutters a weak, “Hello,” on instinct. Though he can’t fathom why anyone would talk to him like this; he’s alone and clearly an alien and nothing interesting. 

The boy beside him smiles, blond hair and blue eyes an exotic mix. Something Spock isn’t used to. He’s holding a black umbrella that he pushes forward so it shields both of them, keeping even the tips of Spock’s shoes dry. Or drier. (Spock’s hair is still a little wet, slick around him.) “I’m Jim.” He holds out a hand, mostly dry. Spock stares down at it, and it takes him a moment to remember the human custom. “Are your parents at the conference, too?”

An admiral’s son. He must be. Spock’s posture stiffens slightly; that makes it his duty to show full respect. He slips his hand into Jim’s and tries not to show on his face how odd it feels to have someone squeeze his fingers and shake them up and down. On Earth, it isn’t meant to be intimate. Jim’s fingers snake away, and Spock’s skin still tingles. “Yes.”

“Huh. Bullshit they wouldn’t let us in, right? I was waiting around back,” He turns and points off into the distance, “But then some Grazerite guy came and told me not to loiter. Weird, right? I mean, what am I supposed to do ‘til my mom’s finished?” 

Spock doesn’t know, but he tries suggesting, “Perhaps you are to loiter in a more appropriate place?”

Jim looks at him oddly. Then comprehension seems to dawn. “Oh, sorry. It was a rhetorical question. I guess Vulcan’s don’t do those. You’re Vulcan, right?”

“Yes.”

“I like your ears.”

...Spock doesn’t know what to say.

“I’m human.”

“I had assumed such.” Spock leaves it there and doesn’t say that he likes Jim’s round ears.

Jim chuckles. It’s a ringing sort of sound, more pleasant than Spock’s used to. Jim shuffles his feet, and he glances towards the front of the building. His sweater has a kind of hood on the back, and though it doesn’t appear very thick, Jim isn’t shivering so much. He turns his back to the building, side by side with Spock, and a stray droplet rolls off one of the tips of his umbrella, landing on Spock’s shoulder. Jim says, “Sorry. ...What’s your name, by the way?”

“Spock.”

Jim repeats, “Spock.” Then he nods, looking at the rain again. “Weird. I like it.” He offers Spock another large smile, and Spock isn’t quite sure how to return the sentiment. His face feels numb and a little unusually hot. It’s less cold with Jim’s body heat so close, and the umbrella keeps the rain a little further back. Jim holds it perfectly between them, something for which Spock would like to thank him, but it’s too awkward and there isn’t a right place. 

Spock looks down at his shoes instead, noticing Jim’s more decorated ones right next to his. 

“Let’s go.”

Spock looks up, but Jim’s already walking around him, nodding for Spock to follow. Spock intends to stay where he is, confused and not apt to follow strangers. 

But there’s something magnetic here that Spock can’t explain, and he doesn’t want to be _alone in the rain_ again, and he lamely trails after his best source of shelter. He wouldn’t go past the building, but Jim stops at the corner, anyway, curving around to the front entrance. The guard, still stationed outside, is staring forward as though it isn’t pouring. For a human, he’s remarkable sturdy and blank. 

“Can you let us inside?” Jim asks. “It’s pouring out here, and I don’t think my mom’s going to be happy if she finds a drowned rat in my place.”

Scrunching his eyebrows together in confusion, Spock stares at Jim’s feet, searching for such an animal. 

“I’m sorry,” the guard replies firmly. “Only Starfleet personnel are permitted for the duration of the conference.”

“I’ll be in Starfleet someday. I’m going to be a captain.”

“Then you may come back when you’re a captain, and I will happily let you inside. ...Sir.” The guard smiles gently down at Jim, but Jim scowls. He looks back at Spock, as though expecting Spock to jump in, but Spock has nothing to say. 

They trail back around the side of the building. Jim still holds the umbrella out for them. At the wall, they both shuffle close to one another, as though a mutual understanding’s passed through them that they’re each other’s best source of heat. Then Jim begins to slide down the wall, and Spock’s forced to follow so the umbrella doesn’t hit his head. They both sit on the pavement. Spock has to keep his crossed legs close to Jim to keep them under the umbrella’s protection.

For a few minutes, they just sit there. Just like that.

It occurs to Spock that he could ask Jim if Jim knows when the conference will end, but his father wouldn’t be pleased with such an illogical question. It wouldn’t change things, and Spock doesn’t have access to the current time, and his internal clock isn’t accurate enough for something like this. So he sits next to Jim and wonders what it must be like to be so open to strange, new things like differently-eared aliens, with free words and the courage to boast of the future. 

“Does it rain a lot on Vulcan?”

Spock shakes his head. “Vulcan is almost entirely dry land, and it rains very little in only select regions.” Jim looks confused, like he doesn’t understand. But he doesn’t ask again. 

They both go back to sitting quietly, wherein Spock begins to feel self-conscious of his shaking; even dry, the water’s getting to him. He can tell Jim notices. Jim shuffles a little closer, maybe to help. Their knees brush. Spock hugs himself again as casually as possible, and he explains through near-chattering teeth, “It is... considerably hotter on Vulcan.”

Jim nods sympathetically. His emotion won’t help, but Spock, a little shamefully, appreciates it. 

Jim moves closer still, and he throws a wooly arm over Spock’s shoulders, tugging Spock in. Spock’s side hits Jim, and he grunts in mild surprise, but he doesn’t pull away. Jim leans his head against Spock’s. Their legs are fully touching, Jim’s arm like a blanket.

Jim’s body is like a heater. It’s comfortable and warm, and Spock’s cheeks feel green, but he can’t bring himself to pull away. He doesn’t want to freeze. His father wants him to learn about Earth. He thinks he might be learning more about himself. 

“Better?” Jim mumbles.

“...Yes. Thank you.” More than that. He can’t say it. How is he going to explain this? They’ll have to pull apart when the convention empties out of the building. (Though, then Spock will be cold again...)

Jim nods against him, their foreheads rubbing together. It almost tickles. “I get dragged to these things all the time. I don’t usually meet anyone my age.”

Spock’s had a similar experience. “That is to be expected for a child of Starfleet.”

“Yeah.” Jim sighs. 

A minute later he mumbles, somewhat quietly, “At least I’m not bored anymore.”

“Yes.”

The rain doesn’t seem so loud with Jim muffling it on one side. The sky doesn’t seem so ominous with the black umbrella between them. It isn’t so bad.

Eventually, Jim tells Spock about the oceans, something Spock still hasn’t seen, and Jim talks about pools and wave pools and water parks, and then about the snow, and he laughs that this is better than hail. Hail sounds horrible. He asks about Vulcan. 

Spock shares very little, because he preferred lying quietly and listening to Jim’s voice, only interjecting when Jim says such ludicrous things that they couldn’t possible be true. 

He grows sleepy and lethargic. 

And Jim’s warm at his side.


End file.
